Not Applicable
Not Applicable
Not Applicable
1. Description of Related Art
Not Applicable
2. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a telecommunication user terminal including a database with a plurality of memory locations each adapted to store a call reference, said user terminal further including selection means adapted to select one of said memory locations according to a predetermined input in said user terminal and to allow a connection to be setup according to the selected call reference.
Such a telecommunication user terminal is generally known in the art. It may for instance be a typical telephone subscriber set or, preferably, a mobile telephone. The database of the user terminal is a personal telephone directory and the call references are phone numbers. Each of these phone numbers is a translation of the code, abbreviation or name dialed on the keyboard of the terminal as predetermined input. In case of a mobile telephone, the database or personal telephone directory is loaded on a smart-card inserted in the telephone. This user personal telephone directory may be combined with another personal telephone directory internal to the telephone, forming then also part of the database. This internal personal telephone directory is in fact the only one present in a fixed telephone.
When one or more alphanumeric characters are entered (dialed) in the telecommunication user terminal or after a xe2x80x9cselectxe2x80x9d instruction, the selection means scans the database or personal telephone directory in order to find a memory location corresponding to this input. If found, the call reference contained in the pointed memory location is transmitted to the selection means. This allows the telecommunication user terminal to setup a connection to a subscriber or to an address corresponding to the selected call reference.
A problem with a database included in a telecommunication user terminal is that the amount of entries thereof is generally limited. Also the size of the memory locations is predefined and may not be exceeded. Additionally, the call references of the database have generally to be loaded and updated manually by the user. To search for information on other telephone services, e.g. in different address books or databases such as the ones provided by network operators or service providers, a special call to these services has to be setup with the goal of searching the information therein. This requires the knowledge of the references or addresses of these services in order to call them up.
An object of the present invention is to provide a telecommunication user terminal of the above known type but which has an easy and user friendly access to a database that is relatively much larger than the one included in the known telecommunication user terminal.
According to the invention, this object is achieved due to the fact that said database includes an extra memory location adapted to store an extra call reference to a second database, said second database being external to said telecommunication user terminal and including second memory locations each adapted to store a second call reference, and that said telecommunication user terminal further includes fall-through selection means adapted to couple said selection means to said second database in order to select one of said second memory locations according to said predetermined input and to allow a connection to be setup according to the selected second call reference.
In this way, the user is provided with an easy access mechanism to a global directory service. By adding only one extra memory location, the amount of possible memory locations to select is increased by the size of the second database. Since the second database is external to the user terminal, it may be relatively much larger. Also larger (second) call references may be available. As a result, the user has an automatic and transparent access to a very large virtual database, e.g. the telephone directory service provided by a network operator. Moreover, no additional action has to be taken by the user to switch from his user and/or internal personal directory or database to the external second database when an entry, for which the user is searching, is not found in the first database.
In more detail, the present invention is characterized in that said fall-through selection means establishes a connection between said telecommunication user terminal and said second database according to said extra call reference and is adapted to recover the selected second call reference and to transmit it to said selection means.
In this way, the user has not even to know the reference for calling the second
Further characteristic features of the present telecommunication set are mentioned in the appended claims.